Steddy privacy policy

Version 2026-11 · Last updated 13 November 2026

Steddy is a personal tool for looking after your mood day to day. What you write in it is about your health, so we collect as little as we can, keep it only for you, and let you take it or delete it at any time.

Who we are

Steddy is made and run by Petro Kvartsianyi, an independent developer ("we"). For anything about your data, write to privacy@steddyapp.com.

Two ways to use Steddy

On this device only (offline mode, phones only). Everything stays in a database on your phone. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else, Firebase is never contacted, and there are no analytics or crash reports. This policy mostly doesn't apply, because we never receive your data. If you make a backup file, you choose where it goes.
With an account (cloud mode, and always on the web). Your data is stored in your account so it syncs between your devices. The rest of this policy is about this mode.

What we store, and why

What	Examples	Why we keep it	Legal basis
Account	Your user id; the email address or Apple/Google sign-in you used	To sign you in	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Health information	Mood check-ins, sleep, plan items and what you did, journal and worksheets, medication and doses, questionnaire answers (PHQ-9, GAD-7), values, notes for your next session	To show it back to you, sync it and build your summaries	Your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a))
Settings	Language, reminders, which features are on, time zone	To make the app work the way you set it	Contract
Your circle	The people you add, what you share with each of them, consent records and access log	So the people you choose see only what you choose (see below)	Your explicit consent
Feedback you send	Your message, category, app version, platform and language	To answer you and improve Steddy	Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f))
Telegram, only if you use Steddy's Telegram bot	Your Telegram user id, your Telegram language, which reminders you switched on, and where you are in a conversation with the bot	To know which account a chat belongs to and send the reminders you asked for	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Waitlist, only if you join it	Your email address, the phone you have (iPhone or Android) and your browser language	To email you once, when Steddy is in the App Store and Google Play	Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a))
Analytics and crash reports, only if you turn them on	Events such as "checked in" or "planned an activity", crash traces, your user id	To find bugs and see which features help	Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a))

We ask for your explicit consent to keep health information before anything is stored in your account. You can withdraw it at any time by deleting your data (Settings › Data and privacy › Delete all my data). Withdrawing doesn't affect what we did before.

What we never do: sell your data, use it for advertising, build profiles for anyone else, or read your entries. Analytics events never contain what you wrote, mood or dose values, or medicine names.

Features that use your phone or other services

Dictation runs on your device (on-device speech recognition). The audio isn't sent to us.
Apple Health (iPhone, if you allow it): Steddy reads your sleep time to fill in your check-in. It never writes to Apple Health, and Apple Health data is never used for advertising.
Calendars (if you connect one): Steddy adds your plan items and appointments to your Google or Apple calendar and can show your events beside your day. For Google Calendar we ask only for permission to manage events. Events you read stay on your device.
Reminders are scheduled on your phone. Medicine names appear in a notification only if you turn that on.

Visits to our website

Our public website (steddyapp.com, its language versions, this policy, the terms and the waitlist page, but not the Steddy app) counts visits so we can see whether anyone finds it and how. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. For each page view or button press it sends the page, the site you came from (or a campaign tag in the link), your browser's language and time zone, your screen width and browser type. We turn these into totals per day, such as "40 visitors, 12 from LinkedIn, mostly on phones", and keep only the totals, for 25 months. To count a visitor once a day, your IP address and browser are combined with a secret that changes every day and turned into a one-way code; the code and the secret are deleted after the day, and your IP address is never stored. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, nothing is sent. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in knowing how the website is used (Art. 6(1)(f)).

Who processes your data for us

Google (Firebase and Google Cloud): sign-in, the database, server functions, hosting, and analytics and crash reports if you turn them on. The database is in the eur3 (Europe) multi-region and our servers run in europe-west1 (Belgium). Google acts as our processor under its data processing terms, which include the EU Standard Contractual Clauses for any transfer outside the EEA.
Apple and Google sign-in, if you use them, to confirm who you are.
Expo, Apple (APNs) and Google (FCM) deliver push notifications. These carry no health information.
Telegram, only if you use Steddy's Telegram bot: it carries the messages between you and the bot, which include what you type there (see below).

We don't use any other service providers for your data.

How long we keep it

Your data stays until you delete it or your account.
Deleting your data or account removes it from the live database straight away. Backups that contain it expire within 7 days.
Waitlist emails are deleted once the launch email has gone out, or straight away if you ask.
Feedback is kept until we've dealt with it, and for no longer than 12 months. App analytics data is kept for 2 months (Google Analytics retention setting); website visit totals for 25 months.
Inactive accounts aren't deleted automatically. You can delete yours at any time in Settings.

Waitlist

Until the iPhone and Android apps are out, "Get the app" on our website asks for your email address so we can tell you when they are. We keep the address, which phone you picked and your browser language (to write in it), in the same European database as everything else, separate from any Steddy account. We send one email, when the apps are out, and then delete the list. We don't use it for anything else or share it with anyone. To be taken off the list before then, write to privacy@steddyapp.com.

Steddy's Telegram bot

You can use Steddy as a Telegram bot. Before anything is saved, the bot asks for your explicit consent, as the app does. We keep your Telegram user id next to your Steddy account, and nothing else from your Telegram profile: not your phone number, username, photo, contacts or other chats.

What you save through the bot (check-ins, notes, plans, wins, thought records and medicines) is stored in the same European database as for any other account. But chats with Telegram bots are not end-to-end encrypted: what you type to the bot, and what it sends back, passes through Telegram's servers and stays in your chat history until you delete it. Telegram's own privacy policy applies to that. To keep less there, medicines are shown as "Medicine 1" and so on unless you turn on medicine names, and reminders never say how you feel. Pictures the bot sends pass through Telegram in the same way: the 14-day chart shows your mood for each day and nothing you wrote.

The bot can send you a button that opens Steddy on the web already signed in. That link works once and for five minutes, and opens only the account behind your chat; don't forward it. You can ask the bot for your therapist report: it sends the same link and PIN the app gives you, so share them only with your therapist.

You can connect the bot to an account you already have (Settings › Data and privacy › Connect Telegram). Sending /delete to the bot deletes everything in an account made in Telegram, or disconnects a connected account (its data stays in the app, where you can delete it). Deleting your account in the app also disconnects Telegram. Blocking the bot stops all messages.

Security

All traffic is encrypted. Data is encrypted at rest by Google. Database rules let only your account read or write your data. You can turn on a lock with Face ID, Touch ID or your phone's PIN. Circle links and PINs are stored only as hashes, and therapist links are rate limited and lock after five wrong PINs.

Your rights

You can, at any time:

see and take your data: Settings › Data and privacy › Export my data gives you everything in a file;
correct it: edit any entry in the app;
delete it: Settings › Data and privacy › Delete all my data, or delete your account;
withdraw consent for health data, sharing or analytics, as described above;
object to processing based on legitimate interest, and restrict processing;
complain to a data protection authority, such as the one where you live.

Write to privacy@steddyapp.com for anything the app doesn't let you do yourself. We reply within one month.

Children

Steddy is for people aged 16 and over. We don't knowingly keep data about younger children; if you think we do, tell us and we'll delete it.

Steddy isn't a medical service

Steddy doesn't diagnose, treat or monitor any condition, and nobody watches what you write. If you're in danger, call your local emergency number.

Your circle is the optional feature for sharing a little of how you’re doing with people you trust. Sharing health data depends on your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

What is shared, and with whom

Nothing is shared until you add someone and switch an item on. Each person sees only the items you switch on for them.
Partners, friends and family need a free Steddy account and must accept your invite. If someone invited you to their circle, you can share back with them without a new invite; nothing reaches them until you switch an item on. Depending on what you choose, they can see:
- a simple status band ("doing well", "steady", "a bit low", "having a rough day"), never your mood number or notes;
- what you'd like today ("some space", "company"…), for that day only;
- a rough-day signal;
- plan items you mark "together";
- your own "what helps me" notes.
A therapist doesn't need an account. They get a private link and a separate 6-digit PIN, which you give them yourself, in person or by phone. The link opens nothing without the PIN. Depending on what you choose, they see:
- a summary since your last appointment (mood trend, check-ins, PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores, homework);
- the specific worksheets you tick;
- your notes for your next session;
- if you turn on "My values" (off unless you do): your top values and this week's check-in scores, with the change from last week. The ratings of your other values, and any of your own values outside your top six, are never shown.
The page is read-only. Your browser and ours are told not to store it (Cache-Control: no-store), and it is hidden from search engines.
Never shared: your journal, free-text notes, mood numbers and medication, unless you pick a specific worksheet entry for a therapist.

How it works

People in your circle never read your own data. Our servers keep a minimal copy of only the items you've switched on, and send it to them when they open the app. Each request is checked against your current choices.
Pausing someone, switching an item off or removing someone takes effect straight away. The copy is deleted, and they see only "sharing paused" or nothing at all. They are not told that you paused or removed them.
Invite and therapist links are random, stored only as a one-way hash, and single-purpose. Invites expire after 14 days. Therapist links end when you choose (after your next appointment, after 30 days, or when you stop them). The PIN is stored only as a salted hash for checking; so that you can see your link and PIN again, they are also kept encrypted, and only you can ask for them. Five wrong PINs lock the link until you make a new one, PIN checks are rate limited, and a browser that entered the right PIN stays open for about 12 hours. Making a new link and PIN stops the old ones at once. Every right PIN, wrong PIN and lock shows in your access log.

Each time you switch an item on or off, we store the time, the item and the exact words you saw.
You can see who opened what, and when, under each person in Your circle. People in your circle can't see when you last checked in or opened the app. There are no read receipts.

Notifications to your circle

People who can see your needs or rough-day signal get a gentle push notification when you set a new need or send a signal. It says only "{name} shared an update". The details are visible only inside the app.
Push notifications are delivered through Expo's push service and then Apple (APNs) or Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging). They carry no health information.

No email

Steddy sends no email for sharing. Therapists get the PIN from you directly, and partner and friend invites go out through your own messages or email app.

Where data is stored

Sharing uses Google Firebase. The database is in the eur3 (Europe) multi-region, and the servers run in europe-west1 (Belgium).
Sharing is only available with a cloud account. In offline (local) mode nothing leaves your phone, and Your circle is turned off.

Export and deletion

Your data export includes your connections, consent records, access log, daily circle status, homework and values.
"Delete my data" removes all connections first, which ends everyone's access and deletes everything that was shared. Deleting your account does the same. If you're in someone else's circle and delete your account, you leave their circle, and they see that in their access log.
Restoring a backup never restarts sharing. You'd set up your circle again.